


Wicked Games

by Quon



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Enduring Sword Talon, F/M, How Do I Tag, M/M, Slash, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-11-01 13:07:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20815664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quon/pseuds/Quon
Summary: Kayn is given a mission: retrieve an ancient weapon and bring it back safely to Ionia, so Noxus can not use it against them.Things go a little awry, and everything he thought he knew morph into delusion.





	1. Master & Pupil

**Author's Note:**

> Why hello there ! 
> 
> First of all, thank you for clicking (despite my very succint summary). It has been a very long while since I shared something I have written, so I hope this will be alright. 
> 
> English is not my first language and I'm proofreading this myself, so, yeah, sorry in advance if there are some redundant mistakes. Feel free to tell me about them in the comment section. I'm here to learn, I won't take offense ! :) 
> 
> Also if you guys have any idea of how I should tag this thing, please tell me, I have no idea xD
> 
> See you around, hopefully !

**PART I**. _Master and Pupil._

The boy had grown well, Zed thought, as he watched his pupil waltz across the training ground like a swan among geese. Kayn made his fellow trainees look clumsy and unsightly, while he looked wild and untamed, his movements a patchwork of elegance and savagery.

He had come a long way from the sickly thin child with eyes too big and innocent for the blood and rust stained scythe he was holding between shaky hands. He remembered it too vividly, how he had knelt in front of the kid, how he had swept his crusty hair out of his face, his metal-covered hand somehow a comfort, as Kayn had leant into the touch. ‘_Have no fear” _he had said, easing the weapon out of the child’s grasp. ‘_Because from this day forth,_ _they will fear you_.’ And the boy had looked at him with wide eyes, not with fear, but hope and fury.

And Zed had known that this day, he had found an apprentice worth his might.

There was a clatter of metal when Kayn let his spear fall at his feet. He held his hands up toward the two acolytes he was fighting, every fiber of him full of cockiness and arrogance. The frustration was clear on their face, because they knew that even bare hands, Kayn was still superior to them, armed to the teeth. They rushed him at the same time, engaging the dark-haired assassin on two fronts. Their technique was not bad by any means, they were in-tuned with each other and they knew how to use their weapons and body, yet they were just no-match. The younger Shadow was just faster, too wild and unpredictable.

Kayn humoured them for a while and danced around them, hitting their sensible area before vanishing in an unnecessary flurry of shadows – the boy loves theatrics. Though, he was a man now. He was broader and taller than most of the other acolytes and Zed himself, true to his Noxian blood. His two opponents grunted as they were looking more foolish by the minute. Kayn kept blinking in and out of their sight, stepping into the shadows like one would dip into fresh water.

The young acolyte played with his preys like he ought to. A small crowd of newcomers gathered around them, snipping at the two poor souls who had to train with Kayn and starting baits about how long it would take for Kayn to get bored of his games or for the two trainees to beg for mercy. However, as soon as the pupil spotted his master observing him from the shadows, his demeanour changed.

The boy spun on himself, crouching to trip one of his opponent and stepped on his wrist to knock his dagger away from his reach. Without a break, he sent his elbow in the other one’s face and his knee into his solar plexus. Zed could almost feel pity for him as a gut-wrenching cry resounded in the open ground. The man fell on his side with a bloody nose and a sored pride, and while the other one was getting back on his feet, Kayn flipped backward to take hold of the aforementioned dagger. In a blink and a stutter of a breath, he was behind the man still standing, the cutting edge pressed beneath his Adam’s apple. In a few seconds, it was over.

“I yield,” the older acolyte said, raising his hands placatingly.

“Yeah,” the other one grunted and spat a reddish gob at his feet. “Damnit, you got me well, you freak.”

Kayn smiled with so much self-satisfaction that it should have been unnerving from anyone else, but somehow, it looked endearing.

He patted the crouched acolyte on the back, the one still holding his privates, with a wry smile. “Better luck next time, brothers.” The man tried to kick Kayn in the shin, which was easily side-stepped. “Also, it’s not like you will ever need them,” he added by pointing at the man’s clutching hands. This time, Nakuri tried to throw the kunai he had hidden in his sleeves, but again, Kayn avoided it by sauntering away.

As he watched Kayn jog toward him, Zed felt nostalgia tear at his heart. He had been that boy once, free-spirited and ambitious. He remembered how life had seemed to be nothing but a succession of milestones, easy and effortless. No sacrifice. No pain. Then he discovered that everyday was a test – of morals, honour, strength – and that there were a thousand way to fail.

“Did you come to watch me?” His sly smile dug a dimple in his right cheek.

“Maybe,” Zed answered.

It was the case. He came often to the training ground, not especially for Kayn, not at first, at least, but to see how his acolytes were evolving. Most of the time, he stayed secluded in his chambers, with shadows, paperwork and memories for sole company.

The boy preened, his hands were crossed behind his back in some sort of military pose, but he was rolling excitedly on the ball of his feet. “They are no match for me,” he said, nodding toward the small group of trainees that was glancing at them curiously. “No one is anymore, really.” The arrogance dripped once again from his tone, but Kayn didn’t seem embarrassed or even aware of it.

“Really now?”

Zed didn’t try to hide the indulgent smile carried by his voice. He had raised the boy. The one who stood before him was his making. He would never be ashamed of it.

“That’s why I wish you would spar with me sometimes, Master.”

It was a request, but not quite. Kayn knew it would be declined, as the Master only ever trained with shadows themselves, yet, a part of him hoped that he had become more, a cut above the rest, worthy of Zed’s attention.

“We will fight in due time, Kayn.” The light-hearted tone changed and settled into a more severe, colder one.

Something dark and fugitive crossed the younger assassin’s otherwise grinning face, and Zed wondered if he had already thought about it. That there will be a time when they would fight and, at the end, only one of them would still be standing to be the Master of Shadows. And if Zed had learnt something about life it was that the youth would always dethrone the elderly. Through time or strength.

“Actually, I want a word with you.” He didn’t wait the younger one’s answer to turn on his heel and strode toward his chambers.

His “chambers” were nothing as grand as the name indicated. In the furthest wing of the Monastery, far away from the dormitories and common quarters, were a small cluster of rooms consisting of an office, a bedroom and, as only luxury, a private washroom, all of rather average size. It was nothing worthy of what you would expect for the great Master of Shadows. Zed had always been simple; he was born poor, raised with harsh principles of humility and despite everything, he had stayed authentic to his background.

He pushed the _shōji_ door open and the heavy scent of burning incense wafted toward the two men. The office was spartan and impersonal. It only stood out by the sheer amount of papers layering the tatami floors and the mahogany _chabudai_. It was only dimly lit by the daylight filtered by the paper wall. There was no decoration, no nonsense, but for the scrolls, scripts and books ordered on high bamboo shelves. Overall, it was some sort of well-organized mess imprinted in the traditional Ionian style.

Kayn waited for Zed to sit on his _zabuton_, before dropping himself in a formal _seiza_. The Master of Shadows rummaged through a stack of paper beside his left knee. It still amused Kayn, how Zed managed to be so efficient in such chaos, but he made sure to hide his fond smile behind his usual cheeky smirk. Eventually, a short scroll was sorted out of the stack. Zed slid it toward Kayn.

It was the schema of a scythe – a quite sizeable one if the measurement scribbled on the side were to be believed. Its wicked edge was promise of eviscerated guts and cleanly slit throats, but what was more unsettling about it was the heavy-lidded eye embedded in the heel. Its fixated cold gaze was depicted with such flourish that Kayn felt a shiver of cold sweat grow on his spine.

“What about it?” Kayn asked, unsurprisingly perplexed.

“It’s an ancient Shuriman relic.” Zed crossed his gloved fingers on the table and leant forward. “A remnant of the war against the Darkin. They call it the Blade of Millenia. I want you to steal it, so Noxus can’t use it against us.”

Kayn’s eyebrow shot up. “That’s it? You just want me to retrieve it and bring it here?”

“This,” Zed pointed at the sketch, tapping it with his metal-enclosed index, “is a very dangerous weapon, more than you can imagine. What do you know about the Darkin War?”

“I don’t know… That it happened millennia ago? Hence the blade’s name?”

Zed rolled his eyes behind his mask, used to his pupil’s antics. Kayn had never been one to take interest into History. His eyes were fixed forward, without never once glancing at the past.

“Shurima hasn’t always been a ruin, it was once the cradle of a prosperous civilisation. They were blessed by the power of the Sun Disc, a colossal artifact that towered over the desert. And amongst their citizens, some were chosen to selflessly serves the empire beyond the ties of simple men, as immortal god-warriors. They were called the Ascended and with their otherworldly powers, they were meant to piously protect Shurima. And they did so, and for centuries, the Shuriman Empire kept on growing, always greater and more majestic.” Zed paused, silently watching Kayn’s fascinated expression.

“Then,” he started talking again, “came a young emperor named Azir. Despite his benevolence and good intentions, his youth and lack of experience made him arrogant. He believed the entire world should be ruled by Shurima, for their cultures and ways of life were superior; or so he thought. To accomplish his goal, he decided to undergo the Ascension himself, but as he was standing on top of the ritual platform, ready to be Ascended, he was betrayed.

“Enticed by the promise of such great powers, Xerath, an older magus, pushed Azir aside, and thus, befouled the ritual and took the powers for himself. However, such outrage had a cost. Violent magics wrecked havoc the Empire, destroying everything in their path. In instants, Shurima was nothing but dust and sorrow.”

“So, this guy died, right? He betrayed his Emperor for nothing?”

“He died, but not quite. Xerath reappeared from the remains as a vengeful and twisted spirit of raw energy. In his folly, he opened the gate protecting Runeterra from the Void, a force of insatiable hunger, the very manifestation of nothingness. An abyss tore open amid the still-smoldering ruins of Shurima. Tendrils of foul energy started to lash on anything they could reach, and slowly, and mercilessly it started expanding.

“The surviving Ascended fought it for years. And they won, but being surrounding by the Void for such a long time took a huge toll on them. It broke their mind and twisted their flesh. Even though they had become gods, their mind remained mortal and despicably human, and without guidance they thought themselves the rightful rulers of the world. Betrayed, terribly altered and broken, _lost_, they became tyrants whereas they were guardians.”

Kayn traced the lines of the scythe with a thoughtful expression, as if he was slowly understanding its might and origin.

“What happened then? What stopped them?”

“They fought and they won for a while, crushing armies and decimating entire nations in a show of their unstoppable force. For a moment, it seemed that it would be the end of all things, but their mistake was to greed and bring the conflict to Valoran, a land of magic. There, mages found a way to contain them and it was their undoing. With their cunning magic, they imprisoned their very essence in the weapon they were carrying.”

“And so, fell the mighty warriors.”

“Yes. They were scattered and hidden across Runeterra, because even hindered, they could not be destroyed, only locked away for a brief respite. They are still capable of taking possession of a host and reshape them in their image. One mistake and the Darkin could arise once more.”

Kayn’s finger paused on the eye of the weapon, hiding its wicked gaze under his phalanx.

“But what if someone takes possession of the _Darkin_? What if someone make it submit?”

Tension settled into Zed’s limbs. Of course, the younger assassin would think about it. And it had happened once.

“Then, they would acquire a power that surpassed the wildest of imagination.”

“But no one has ever succeeded?”

Zed moisten his lips, forcing his demeanor to stay neutral. Long ago the golden-armored queen Avarosa had borrowed the power of a Darkin bow to repel the Watchers, at the cost of her own life.

“None.”

A deep frown appeared between the younger man’s eyebrows. His index twitched over the still depiction of the scythe. Without a thought, Zed’s hand shot up and gripped Kayn’s.

“If I told you all this, Kayn, it’s because you have to understand that this thing cannot be controlled. It will try to lure you and if you let it, it will eat you alive.”

For a while Kayn stared into Zed’s glowing eyes, then his eyes casted downward to their joined hands, something akin to torment written on his youthful face.

“Don’t you trust me, Master?”

The silence opened like a curtain and a thousand of unsaid words swelled into it, weighing the air down and holding their breath inside their throat, and seconds turned into minutes. Zed opened his mouth, but found his tongue sealed. So much had to be said, yet so little was allowed to be heard. 

He took too long to answer. Kayn ripped his hand from under Zed’s, his knuckles whitened into a fist.

“So, it’s how it is.”

“Kayn…”

“May I go?”

Zed did not answer, only showing the door in a deliberate hand gesture. 

The young assassin stood up and bowed deeply, his long plait shuffling on the _chabudai_. When he straightened up, his face was an unusual mask of impassibility. He took the parchment holding the necessary information about the scythe and walked to the door. There, he paused, and his back turned to Zed, he said, in the soberest voice one has ever heard from him:

“I will prove you I’m worthy.”

“I hope so.”

The door clicked shut. Zed stretched his legs and stood up, weary and tired beyond his years. He couldn’t stop fate. He couldn’t stop the cycle of life, he thought to get rid of any lingering guilt for letting his student run to his own demise.


	2. In the Shades of Noxus

**PART II.** _In the Shades of Noxus. _

The noxtoraa was one of Noxus greatest achievement. It consisted of a gigantic layout of highroads paved in dark stones and closed by humongous gateways. All of them lead to the capital and were meant to show the absolute supremacy of the head of Noxus over its subjugated vassals and conquered lands, as nothing could pass them without being authorized.

Kayn would show them wrong.

Crouched in the shadows of a watchtower, he surveilled the whereabouts of the guards. They pathed nervously, repeating their instructions in a tense voice, aware that they were at a chokepoint. Kayn smirked. His hands were bare and hanging relaxed by his side. He was serene, as he savored the calm before the storm, the anticipation. He relished in the expectation of battle, his mind sharpening in the prospect of blood.

Down below, the city of Vindor shone of dimmed torchlights through heavy lids of concrete and stone. The coastal city stood at the image of Noxus, imposing and commanding in all its greyness and stern exterior. Kayn had very few memories of his life in Noxus, so all he could tell was how different it was from Ionia, where architecture blend harmoniously with the nature and surroundings. Noxian didn’t hesitate to deformed their lands to accommodate their lifestyle. He remembered the slums and the poverty. Disgust soared in his throat, and he looked away.

There were six guards, all of them armed with a spear and a cutlass. They wore a thin layer of armor, meant to protect their weakest points without hindering their movements. An imposing bell stood in the middle of the gateways, their only mean to alert the city if they were attacked. Kayn would have to take them all down before one of them could reach it.

He waited until sunset. As the shadows started to lengthen, the caravan showed up, just a dark moving point in the horizon, only recognizable in the backlight by wisps of dusts rising into the orange sky – it was time to get rid of the soldiers.

He slithered into the shadows and let them envelop him like a second skin. He might not be Zed, but the shadows obeyed him just as well. The guards gathered in a tense silence as one of them pointed at the growing cloud of dust hurrying toward them. One of them walked out of position, probably to send a signal to the city. Kayn let him, waiting in the shades of a pillar, unmoving, but deadly.

But just as the man reached out to pull the string of a bell, Kayn lunged forward. He reappeared behind the guard, his body nothing but a maelstrom of darkness, but his hands oh so tangible as they squeezed the life out of the poor man. Only a weak gurgle escaped his mouth before his neck was snapped at a deadly angle. The quickening pulse under Kayn’s fingers as his prey understood his doom, and then, the painful stutter of a heart being brought to an abrupt halt, Kayn savoured every second of it.

The body sagged against him, the head lolling into his collarbone in some sort of intimate embrace. Kayn discarded him almost reverently, making sure no noise was made as he laid his victim against a rampart. And just like that, he dissolved again into tendrils of smoke-like shadows. The wind seemed to grow colder and the soldiers held their weapons with more wariness, sensing the distinct shift into the atmosphere without even noticing their dead comrade.

He darted across the cobbled road, silent and immaterial, just a whisper in the ever-colder air. The guards had their back turned to him, as they were looking out for the arriving caravan. Kayn materialized behind the one on the utter-left, his hands lacing around his collar in a phantasmal caress. He felt a scream rose in the man’s throat, it pushes under his fingers, but it never escaped as once again, the neck was swiftly broken.

The resounding _crack _thundered in the tense atmosphere, drawing the attention of the remaining guards. They stood in frozen silence for a second that felt like eternity. Kayn let them take the scene in, smirking when terror cross their features as he vanished in a whirl of darkness. They jumped back, fumbling to unsheathed their blade. He chuckled, the sound reverberating around them in a glacial echo. They tried to steel themselves; they were four, he was alone. They thought they had a chance. _How delusional_.

In a flash, he reformed behind them, his breath a cold promise on their neck. With nimble fingers, he picked one of the small daggers he had hidden under his cloak and planted it once in one of the men’s flank, and when the man turned around to look at his aggressor, a second time right between his clavicles. The body fell limp and lifeless, a quiet _thump _and a pool of crimson on the floor.

“What do you want?” A guard stuttered, aiming his spear where Kayn was no longer standing.

The assassin laughed again, enjoying how the shadows echoed him in an eerie chorus. Kayn had mastered most weapon, but the deadliest was fear itself. He loved how it blurred his prey’s mind, how it tetanized them in such a way that they just could not fight back. The guards were pale, their well-trained hands all of sudden instable and gauche.

The assassin stalked behind them, his presence like a cold breath prickling their skin. Next thing they knew was that one of their comrades was dead, a _wakizashi_ piercing his midsection. The man fell on his knees, a surprised gasp lingering on his bloodied lips. _Three left,_ was all the young man thought as he pivoted on his heel to catch the next soldier, which was trying to flee toward the city. Kayn held him in his arm, his lips against the man’s ear:

“Oh no, I’m not done yet,” he whispered sweetly.

The man squeaked, struggling against Kayn, but his movements were sluggish, impaired by the terror of seeing all his companions fall one by one. He couldn’t think straight, Kayn knew it very well. His mind was set on flight, yet, there were no escaping a Shadow Assassin. The next thing the man knew was that a small dagger was thrusted and twisted into his stomach. Tears travelled down the man’s cheek, and Kayn conceded that those were the prettiest chestnut eyes he had ever seen.

Meanwhile, the two remaining men had tried to turn away, but in a blink, Kayn was again at their throat. “_The fear_,” he said as he tackled one of them down, stepping cruelly on his wrist, “Control it or submit to it.” He plunged his _wakizashi_ between the soon-to-be-corpse’s shoulder.

_One last_. Kayn looked toward the caravan. He still had a few minutes. He grabbed the surviving soldier by the neck and turned him around so he had to witness each of his partners lying in the crimson pool of their own blood. “Look how powerless you are, Noxian.” The quaking man stumbled backward and the stench of piss rose to the assassin’s nostrils. “They taught you were all power and might, yet you can do nothing against a son of Ionia.”

A sadistic satisfaction run through his veins as he made the man kneel in the blood, then ensnared his shaky chin between his fingers and snapped his head toward him, so the soldier had no other choice than to watch him in the eye.

“Remember this face,” he instructed, “Tell the others, teach them to fear me or they will all die like your little friends. Now, run.”

He pushed the man forward, smirking as he fell flat on his face, sputtering as blood soaked his clothes and infiltrated his lips. He squirmed forward, clambering on his feet, before breaking into a desperate sprint. He didn’t get far. An arrow pierced his right calf. The man whimpered, trying to crawl his way to salvation, but another projectile right in the back of his skull stopped him for good.

Kayn readied his _wakizashi, _waiting for the new menace to show itself. Nakuri crept out of the shadows, showing his bare hands in a placating manner. The younger assassin silently sheathed his weapon, his eyes fixed on the acolyte. “I wasn’t aware this was a _duet_ mission. Did Zed send you?”

A myriad of emotions went through Kayn’s mind during the too long second Nakuri took to answer. Had Zed so little confidence in him that he had sent a chaperon to make sure he wouldn’t slip? He felt anger and disappointment.

“No,” Nakuri answered, watching intently as Kayn’s hands inched toward his _wakizashi_ again. “I asked him if I could follow you. I was curious about this… thing, this weapon.” Then, he pointed toward the guard he had killed himself. “But when I see what you intended to do, I’m glad I was here. You can’t let them know who we are. We are _assassins_, we don’t bathe into glory, we remain in _shadows_.”

Kayn snorted at those words. “Are you done? Help me hide them.”

They dragged the body under the shades of an archway, stacking them like one would pack meat waiting to be dismembered.

“Now get out of my sight, I will deal with you later,” Kayn said, his tone dry. He cleaned his blades on the garments of a fallen Noxian.

“Brother…”

Nakuri took a step forward, his mouth opening to argue further, but Kayn closed it with the tip of his _wakizashi_, the sharp edge drawing a tear of blood.

“I said, get out. This is _my _duty, Zed entrusted it to _me_.”

Tension appeared on the older acolyte’s face, and for a split second, Kayn thought Nakuri would confront him, but eventually, he turned on his heels without a word, vanishing in the night.

The young assassin contemplated the dusk a second longer. He could hear the heavy hooves of the approaching caravan. Orders were loudly exchanged between soldiers. They wouldn’t notice that something had gone wrong until it was too late for them to run away. The long shadows of the early night were efficiently hiding the cadavers. He dissipated into thin air and lurked in the shades of the noxtoraa. He felt pleasure thinking that one of their greatest structure would be their undoing.

“Hold!” the first outrider cried, drawing his sword. “Fan out! Now!”

He watched with rapt attention as confusion settled among the troop, and for the first time, took sight of their mighty cargo. On the back of a sturdy Vidoran draft horse, wrapped in careful layers of chainmail and sackcloth, was the scythe. They all dismounted from their agitated horses and slowly stalked the obscure length of the gate. “Where are the guards?” someone asked, just as another one yelped. “I found them.”

They all gathered around the pile of corpses, rising their swords with dread. The assassin smirked when he heard the distinct sound of retching. Fear replaced their confusion, that was what Kayn was waiting for. “What…?” Whatever the soldier was about to say, it ended in the ugly gurgle of his throat being slit open. The shadow assassin didn’t waste time and spun on himself to struck at another soldier, getting him in the eye. Kayn lost himself in the heat of battle.

He aimed with a precision earned by years of training, slashing and blinking in and out of their sight. He was the devil, feasting on their blood and fear. They fought well, they gave it all their might as they tried to parry and avoid his deadly hits, but again, they were no match for him and fell one by one.

There was one left. The poor man scurried on all four, crawling desperately toward the Vindoran, which was nervously straying away. Kayn watched him with curiosity, trailing slowly behind. He wondered if the rumors were real. He wanted to see if this man’s soul would be devoured by the weapon. He flicked the blood from his blade and sheathed it.

The soldier whimpered, conscious of the scrutiny but the desperation pushed him to continue and undid the straps with shaky fingers. He unwrapped the weapon, which appeared just as terrifying and vicious as it had been on the drawing, if not more. The red eye opened slowly, observing its new surrounding ravenously. It glowed with evil intents and inhuman rage. Kayn stepped forward, expectant.

For some trailing seconds, nothing happened. The man pointed the scythe toward the assassin, but even the mighty weapon couldn’t make him threatening with his unsteady limbs and teary eyes. But suddenly, his eyes grew even wider, not with fear, this time, but with pain. Dark matter spurted out of his pores and hardened into a carapace. Some sort of twisted horns rose from his skull. It was a weak replica of the Darkin’s original shape, all misshapen and contorted.

So, it was real.

Kayn smirked, beaconing the corrupted Noxian closer by drawing his weapon out. The beast growled and suddenly leapt forward, almost taking the assassin by surprise. He dodged a vicious blow by sinking into the noxtoraa. The bewildered creature stopped its charge and looked around. Kayn reappeared in its own shadow and stabbed it in the junction between its neck and shoulder. He expected the cuirass to offer some resistance, but it shattered on contact. The newly-formed being crumbled into black shards and choking dust.

The scythe clattered on the ground, its eye, fixated on Kayn, slowly closing. Kayn considered it warily. The atmosphere felt heavy, charged with electricity and evil intents. He had witnessed the power of the scythe, how it could devour a soul in a stamp of a minute. But the man was not _worthy_. Kayn was. He reached for it.

“Kayn, stop! What are you doing?” Nakuri appeared behind him, crying out in disbelief.

Kayn paused, glancing above his shoulder to glare at the acolyte. “I remember telling you to disappear from my sight.”

“You saw what this thing can do! You can’t seriously consider touching it. You will die!”

Kayn’s hand wavered above the scythe. He could feel it compelling him, pushing his hand down, when he should have listened to Nakuri. He clenched his fist. He was different, he couldn’t let petty doubts mess with his mind. He was promised to greatness.

“Watch me.”

When he closed his fingers around the scythe, they were steady and secured. Nakuri froze on the spot, his mouth opening in a silent plea. The moment seemed to stretch out. Pain shot up Kayn’s arm, agonizing like acid crawling in his veins. He fell on his knees, watching with growing horror as dark matter swarmed up his left arm. The scythe’s eye was slowly opening, almost sleepily. This couldn’t be happening. No, he couldn’t let this happen.

Kayn clenched his teeth. He was sensing the Darkin’s mind pushing against his own, voraciously seeking to take control. The thing was an absolute monstrosity. Through small glimpses into its mind, he witnessed millennia of war and bloodlust, an insufferable thirst that could never be quenched. It yearned for bloodbath, screams and lamentations. Its only purpose was to bring torment and chaos upon the living. And to do so, it needed a worthy host, one that could vehicle its power without breaking.

He knew he couldn’t let it happen. It wasn’t about pride and glory anymore; it was a far greater than his sole person. It was about the safety of Runeterra.

“Brother…!”

Kayn only saw it from the corner of his eyes. As Nakuri took a step toward him, a dark form leapt above the rampart. The younger one opened his mouth to warn his fellow acolyte, but he was rendered silent by the pain vibrating in each of his joins and muscles. He witnessed, powerless, Nakuri being impaled by a vicious dirk. Cold surprise struck the older one’s features as he looked down at the blade protruding from his guts. It was twisted once before being brutally pulled out. Nakuri s lumped forward, a death rattle for a last word.

Kayn swore under his breath. He watched the hooded man advance toward him, Nakuri’s blood trickling down his dagger. He had to move, he couldn’t lay there, vulnerable, waiting for his demise. With all his might, he repelled the Darkin’s assault and forced himself to stand up, using the scythe as a cane.

‘**_Oh?_**’ The obnoxious rumble that echoed in his mind could only be the beast’s voice. ‘**_Interesting!_**’ Kayn felt the Darkin’s sickening excitation like a thrill up his spine, contagious.

The cloaked figure paused upon seeing him standing up. He eyed him and the scythe cautiously.

“What the hell is this?”

Kayn leveled the weapon toward the Noxian assassin, a smirked sharpening his lips.

‘**_Will you prove worthy?_**’ The Darkin taunted, inhuman and dispassionate.

The other assassin took the clue, readying his dagger and tilting his head with both curiosity and arrogance. Kayn didn’t wait a minute longer. The scythe was fueling power and rage into his being, making him too restless to acknowledge his actual state of weakness. He didn’t notice the toll the battle with the Darkin had taken on his body. He felt invincible with the new source of power coursing through his veins. As he spun the scythe, using the momentum to propel himself to his new opponent, it felt like a part of him, as he alone was born to wield it.

However, when the wicked edge of the scythe met the dagger and was brutally fend off, he knew he had done a mistake. He should have run. He took notice of his vulnerability when each of his blow was met with an excruciating force and parried with leisure. That had never happened. It should _never_ happen.

Kayn was bone-tired. His muscles trembled from exertion. _Such a mistake_. It was so unlike him. How could he throw himself head first against an unknown enemy without assessing his own weaknesses? The scythe, of course.

“Such a fool,” he grumbled, trying to escape by sinking into the shadows.

But the Noxian assassin didn’t fall for his trick. He grabbed Kayn’s hair in a steel grip and with his other hand, pressed a handkerchief to his face. The shadow assassin faintly smelled the effluvium of a toxin, before his world started to blur and melt around him.

‘**_This is only the beginning_**,’ the scythe purred, poking at Kayn’s intoxicated mind like a cat at a mouse. ‘**_So long I have waited for this._**’ 


	3. Of Noxian and Ionian

**PART III.** _Of Noxian and Ionian. _

Talon broke a twig in half and threw it into the campfire. He watched as it slowly crackled and turned grey before crumbling into orange glowing ashes. The morning air was crisp and carried a faint smell of crocuses blooming under the dew. He sighed, tiredly running a hand over his face. The night had been full of twists and turns. When Swain had sent him to Vindor to keep track of the arrival of some ancient relic, he had expected a boring routine mission to punish him from his last slip-up – he had many, actually. 

Obviously, he had been wrong. He had caught up to the convoy a bit late, the road from the capital to Vindor more troublesome than anticipated. All he found was death littering the great noxtoraa and two strangely clothed men. One was dead, the other one was now laying unconscious beside him.

Talon pulled his hood over his head, surveying warily the other man, who could wake up any time now. His ankles and his hands were tightly bound by anti-magic shackles, a secret manufacture Noxus had stolen from Demacia long ago. The scythe, whose eye had closed the moment it had fallen away from the young man, was once again securely attached to the Vidoran draft horse, beneath layers of chainmail and sackcloth.

The Noxian assassin sighed with irritation. He had to travel back to the Immortal Bastion with his strange hostage and cargo. With a damn horse. A travel Talon could do in a few days, at his ruthless pace and with his unorthodox shortcuts, would take a week or more. He only hoped he would be able to let the man conscious and walking, as the poor gelding would benefit of having only the already heavy scythe to carry on his back. The less breaks they would have to do, the better.

He studied his unfortunate companion, thoughtful. His braid had felt loose along the way and long locks of hair were covering his face, but couldn’t hide the youthful beauty of the man. Not even the ugly scar around his left eyes could. He was cladded in a black _hakama_ and a hooded jacket. The left sleeve was torn and weird metal-like spikes were spurting out of the remaining fabric in some sort of scaly armor. He didn’t know what it was, but he was getting very annoyed at Swain and Darius for not letting him know what they were getting him into by sending him to Vindor. It was obviously beyond a simple relic.

The man’s eye shifted beneath his eyelid, before fluttering open. Talon broke out of his scrutiny, readying himself for the confrontation.

The stranger struggled to sit up, groaning at the uncomfortable position he had been forced to sleep in. His hair messily cascaded down his face in a dark curtain as he bent down to inspect his handcuffs. Talon could only admire how calmly he assessed his situation. He didn’t panic, didn’t strain against his links and didn’t beg or cry in incomprehension. His gaze shifted toward the Vidoran, lingering onto the imposing package on his back. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, before finally addressing Talon.

“I’m hungry,” he said, cavalierly.

Talon blinked at him unimpressed, but got up to retrieve a loaf of dry bread and what remained of the hare he had cooked earlier. He didn’t have a plate, so he used a slice of bread instead and gracelessly dropped it on the man’s knees. He didn’t get a _thank you, _but he didn’t expect one to beginning with. The man awkwardly twisted himself in order to bring the food to his mouth despite his limited movements. Talon watched silently during the whole ordeal, but eventually asked:

“What’s your name?” He spoke in the Common Tongue. He doubted the boy was Noxian. Even if his features weren’t totally those of a foreigner, his clothes and manners showed otherwise.

He received no answer, so he added: “Listen, you put yourself in a shitty situation, and with those shackles, you are not going to escape any time soon, so at least try to cooperate while the questions are easy.”

A huff, but eventually, an answer: “Kayn.”

“Alright, where are you from?”

“Doesn’t it escalate too quickly? I don’t think this is an easy question.”

Kayn sucked the grease off his thumb. Talon sighed; it was indeed a rather tricky question and there was no way he could start pulling the man teeth to have his answers, not without the consent of his superiors. He knew too little about the whole situation to act on it. He hated it. He was reduced to a simple conveyor, even though he was one of the most feared assassin Noxus has ever raised. However, the careful way Kayn spoke and the slight lilting of his voice indicated he could be from Demacia or Ionia. He was leaning toward Ionia, as he was pretty sure what he had witness on the noxtoraa was shadow magic.

“Do you know what this thing is?”

He nodded toward the horse, and more precisely, the package. Kayn snorted.

“You ask a lot of questions for someone who doesn’t even give his name or show his face.”

Talon leant forward on his crossed-legs, rubbing his tongue over his teeth to hold back the annoyed snappy quip he wanted to fire back. He was also grateful that his hood was shading his face enough to hide his facial expression.

“As I said, I don’t think you are in a position to argue with me.”

Kayn rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what this thing is.”

Talon didn’t believe him one bit, but again, he couldn’t act on it yet. But even if his captive was being difficult, he was getting information just by making him speak. His accent, his personality, his educations; all those things were transparent to more vital indications that would help him later, during his dreaded report.

“I’m thirsty.”

The Noxian managed to not click his tongue and threw his waterskin without a word. The stranger was doing his best to get on his nerves and he couldn’t afford to show it was working.

“Can you,” Kayn held out his manacled hands, “help me out?”

Again, Talon silently walked up to the boy and uncapped the gourd. He pressed it against Kayn’s waiting lips and gently tipped it. He looked away from his offered and gulping throat, his eyes wandering over the grazing horse and the sizzling fire in some sort of forced fascination.

He ignored the smirk that adorned the boy’s lips as Talon retreated to sit at the other side of the campfire.

“So, what now?”

Kayn leant backward, his back smoothly meeting a three stump. His composure was unsettling and not unlike Talon’s own hard-trained attitude. 

“I’m taking you to Noxus Prime.”

He perked up at Kayn’s sobered expression, how his shoulders slumped slightly.

“For a _fair_ trial?” The sarcasm was heavy, but Talon didn’t falter.

“Yes.”

“As if such a thing exists for Noxus.”

“It does. It all depends of what this thing is and how it’s linked to you. You might be surprised by what they will propose to you.”

“I highly doubt that.”

Talon felt too tired to argue. The tenuous crackle of the fire, an obnoxious hummingbird or the squall of a lonely stag; all those background noises made his senses dull. He hadn’t slept much the previous night to watch over his captive. He knew it was the first sleepless night of many.

He stood up and poured water on the fire to extinguish it, then stepped to smother some surviving embers. He didn’t want to cause a fire in one of the rare verdant area of Noxus.

“We are moving,” he explained when Kayn just kept watching him without getting the clue.

He attached the waterskins to the chestnut gelding and made sure the harness and straps were properly secured. When he turned around, Kayn eyed him with a quizzical expression, then rose his eyebrows toward his linked ankles. Talon patted the chestnut gelding on his hindquarter and pulled on the reins. The animal dutifully put himself into motion in a quiet grunt and they walked toward the other man.

The Noxian knelt and quickly untied his legs. However, before Kayn could stand up, he gripped him by the shoulder, and for the first time, their eyes met in a silent challenge.

“Behave,” Talon finally spoke after a minute of standoff, “or I won’t hesitate to put you on a leash.”

A humorless laugh was all he got for an answer, but he decided that it would have to do for now. He roughly pulled Kayn on his feet. For several kilometres, the ruffle of their feet in the dry grass was the only sound accompanying them. 

They mostly walked in silence. Talon was too focus on planning their route to entertain Kayn, who was too busy frowning at his shackles anyway. They couldn’t use the noxtoraa. A hooded man leading a shackled foreigner and a draft horse carrying a human-size package was too suspicious. The assassin didn’t want to waste time explaining his situation to the guards of the outposts. Even if his face and name were enough of a pass-through, without official clearance, they could still request to have a look at his cargo. They would have to use the old roads and go through towns during the night as to not attract too much attention.

“What are those things anyway?”

In case, Talon didn’t know what he was talking about, Kayn leant his forearms over the other’s right shoulder to jiggle his shackles.

“Petricide.”

“Wha–?”

“It’s Demacian.”

So, he was from Ionia, that much was almost sure now. It made sense now.

“What does it do?”

“It saps your magic.”

“Marvelous.”

Without surprises, Kayn appeared to be a pleasant travel companion, if not for his snarky comments about every aspect of Noxus. Even with his movements hindered by his shackled hands, he kept up with Talon’s brisk pace, without complaining or showing any signs of fatigue. The Ionia seemed to never run out of dubious conversational topics. Talon didn’t mind it as much as one would expect. The background noises actually kept him awake and he secretly enjoyed it.

That is until their first unfortunate encounter.

The deeper they advanced into Noxus, the more complicated it was to stay away from prying eyes. Noxus was heavily overpopulated and all space had been turned into towering towns of obsidian and granite. So, as they approached Prime, it became impossible to go unnoticed. He snatched a cape to cover Kayn’s exotic outfit and hands. He draped a woolen blanket over the horse so the shape of the package wouldn’t be too obvious. Yet, eyes still lingered on them. They were an odd pair, despite their disguise and attempts to appear normal.

So far, they managed to find places to sleep under the stars, but they had arrived at a point where the soils were so dry and sterile that no plants could grow out of it, thus, every bit of it was covered by edifices and buildings. 

They appeared like a pack of famished wolves. They were manual workers; Talon could tell by their worn-out uniform and the salient muscles on their meager arms. They approached slowly, surrounding them and circling them like predators. They felt safe by outnumbering them with pipes and crowbars as only weapons. _How foolish_.

In Noxus, there was no middle class. You were either poor to the dirt or filthy rich. And that was how those simple men, probably husbands and fathers, were turned into bandits. He didn’t need to ask them to know their stories. They were born in the slums. They went to school until they were twelve. At that age, Noxus decided that they didn’t have the qualities to make it to the upper circles, so they were sent to the factories, where they were to work until their mind or body, whichever first, break.

Desperation made them brave. Beside him, Kayn tensed. He was very defenseless in his current position. Not only had he his movements impaired, but the travel too was starting to take its toll on both of them. Restless nights, unforgiving pace and little food made them more vulnerable than they ever should be. However, Talon was confident in his capacity to take them all down by himself.

“This could go very nicely,” one of the men said, fiddling with a club in a vain attempt to look menacing. “You give us the horse and you can both go with your life.”

Kayn chuckled darkly, his eyes nervously flickering toward the sealed scythe, but didn’t say anything. The air felt heavy and several other eyes were drawn toward the package.

“I don’t think that will work,” Talon answered in Noxian, as it was the language the man used too.

Some men fidgeted anxiously, maybe realizing that they just walked into the maw of the beast, but the man with the club didn’t falter. They were emaciated, their fibrous muscles vibrating under the dual action of adrenaline and excitement. Talon’s right hand inched toward his daggers.

They attacked all at once, not taking their chances by initiating a fair duel.

Talon knocked one down before they could reach him. He blinked behind his target and hit him on the cervical. The man dropped unconscious. The assassin noted his heaving chest and discarded him on the pavement. He didn’t want to kill them. He could have been one of them if Darius hadn’t noticed his talent for the blade when he was just a homeless child.

Confusion rose quickly amongst their uncoordinated ranks. Talon was like smoke, and those poor fools were trying to catch him barehanded. His movements were a practiced litany that his opponents could only helplessly listen. He knelt to avoid the nasty hit of a mace covered in nails and with a snap of his wrist, he sent a dagger in the guts of an enemy.

In the global panic that surrounded them, he didn’t notice one of them scurrying toward the gelding. The entity oozed sweet promises to be unchained, full of empty desires and vain dreams. The creature wanted – no, needed to be released and was using the chaos to achieve its ends. Without anyone really noticing, the atmosphere was weighed down by its evil intents. Only Kayn, who had already tasted it, reacted in time to intercept the Noxian.

Constrained, he had no other choice than to bodily slam into him. The horse, despite being well-trained, reared at them in fright, its hooves connecting with Kayn’s upper tight. He swore under his breath as dull pain cursed over his skin and forced himself to stay upright to contain the crazed man. Using his legs to block the other, he managed to extricate his hands and used the bulk of his shackles to do him in.

However, the more Talon’s rampage went on, the more desperate they became. They crawled toward the scythe like possessed corpses and soon enough, Kayn found himself overwhelmed by their sheer resolve and number. He fought them back, ironically using his restraints as weapons. Still, he was tiring fast and he couldn’t prevent some nasty blows from slowly tearing him apart. The cruel bite of a mace in his flank made him stagger backward, his back hitting the gelding’s flank.

Now completely cornered, he had no other choice than to fight tooth and nails to stand upright against a human wave. Thankfully, they cared little about him, too focused on clutching and groping the horse to access the package.

Talon didn’t take long to realize his mistake and vaulted toward the closest opponent. In a swift flick of his wrist, he cut his throat. In a matter of minutes, the men were lying out cold in a growing pool of crimson.

Kayn spitted blood on the pavement, leaning on the gelding while holding his side. They stood in a tense silence, one trying to catch his breath while the other contemplated the disaster around them. Eventually, Kayn looked up as he felt Talon’s gaze shift toward him. His hood had slipped back during the confrontation, revealing a wild mane of fair hair, dark blue eyes and a slightly crooked nose. 

Silence lingered a bit longer, before Talon asked, “Can you walk?”

Kayn sneered. He felt like his face had been bashed in and his whole body stomped by a herd of sheep. Blood was pouring from his nose and lower lips. Yet, he answered, “yes.”

Talon eyed him warily, then nodded toward the gelding: “Climb.”

“I said I’m fine.”

The Noxian sighed and tiredly rubbed his face, smearing blood all over his forehead. Kayn would have laughed if a thorn of pain wasn’t menacing to explode in his ribcage.

“Don’t be difficult.”

Kayn hesitated, but eventually complied. “Whatever.” He didn’t miss Talon rolling his eyes at him.

“Do you really want me so close to the Scythe?” He noted as he gripped the leathers to hoist himself up. He grimaced as pain shot up his spine into his arms. Talon lifted him bluntly, oblivious of Kayn’s glare and very unmanly yelp.

“I think I will take the risk.”

They walked down the maze of the Noxian streets, the clamor of the horse hooves as a background rhythm. Kayn took a moment to realize how foreign the whole atmosphere seemed to him. He was used to Ionia lighthearted spirit. People liked to stay late chatting away in the streets just for the pleasure a feeling alive. In those somber streets, the air was heavy with grief and diffidence. A silent challenge was growing in this silence, as if lurking in the shadows, was a creature ready to pounce and maul anyone daring standing too close. Anger and resentment swelled like an illness, to a point that it was tangible. 

When he looked up at a window, Kayn saw the silhouette of a woman loom behind a silky curtain.

“Is it like this everywhere?” He asked without thinking.

“Like?”

Kayn made a vague sign with his hands, englobing the surrounding buildings and the shady streets. “This… Inhospitable?”

He could sense the other man considering his question, maybe wondering if he would answer at all. Finally, he said, “No.”

“It’s hard to believe.”

Talon grunted. “The world is not all black and white, kid. The stories you were told about Noxus is only the other side of the coin.”

“I wasn’t told stories. I have seen it firsthand.” 

The Noxian considered him above his shoulder, a sliver of suspicion gleaming in his midnight eyes. “Have you?”

Kayn smirked, enjoying their slow chase. He scratched drying blood from his cheek as he shrugged. “Besides,” he said, “you can’t be old enough to call me a kid.”

Beneath his white bangs, his skin was smooth and unblemished by time, even if his voice held a weariness only old souls possessed. It was his turn to shrug it off.

“We will set camp here,” he stated instead.

They had barely passed the outskirt of the city, but Kayn couldn’t help feeling relieved. His body ached and he was getting nauseous from the dull pain pulsating through his head, probably from a mild concussion. He watched the noxian assassin gather twigs and rachitic sticks. With experience, he set stones in a circle and placed the wood in a tepee in the middle of them. Then, he took a thin notebook from a pocket inside his coat and ripped pages from it. A messy and tiny handwriting was covering them. Kayn wondered if it was some sort of diary that he was burning away with so little care.

He jumped down the horse back and trailed toward the campfire where he dropped on his knees with a sigh. He held his hands forward to feel the warmth on his shredded knuckles. The blood was now dry and plastered on his body. He had not had the luxury to wash up since his capture.

“How bad is it?” his captor enquired.

“Not bad,” Kayn answered. He didn’t want to fuss about it. He suffered worse during training sessions. Now that the adrenaline had worn down, he could tell he would be fine, just a bit stiff for a few weeks.

“Show me.”

Kayn glanced back at the Noxian, his eyebrows scrunching in a confuse frown. Talon impatiently pushed his shoulder so he had no other choice than to face him. Nimble fingers traveled down to his _obi _and lingered a split-second on the knot before trying to untie it clumsily.

“What kind of belt is this?”

“Why the fuck are you trying to undo it?” Kayn screeched back, trying to waddle away.

Talon rolled his eyes, “We need to tend your wounds. We still have a long way to go and I won’t let some infected bobos slow us down.”

“Did you really just say ‘bobos’?” He was both offended and amused.

Meanwhile, Talon had managed to unknot the sash, which fell flabbily, leaving Kayn’s _hakama_ hanging loosely around his waist. Without even pausing, Talon pulled it down and now, Kayn was lying in his _fundoshi_. His legs were bare to the brisk night breeze and rows of goosebumps rose upon his skin. However, he didn’t know if it was because of the cold or of the callused hand poking at his bruised leg.

“Does it hurt?”

He looked down at his own limbs, grimacing as he took in the ugly colour spreading from his right hip to the middle of his thigh. Some scratches were adding some red to the whole assemble. He couldn’t hold back a hiss of pain as Talon probed it a bit too firmly.

“What do you think?” he answered.

“Can’t you just answer?”

He pushed once more and narrowly avoided the cuffed hand that went flying to his head.

“So?”

“Yes! Yes, it hurts!”

Talon hummed and lifted his shirt. His ribs were in the same state, but nastier cuts were littering his belly and flanks.

“You know, usually I don’t get so intimate with people of which I don’t know the name,” he ranted, but was promptly ignored.

“We need to clean this.”

Talon stood up and took the waterskins that were hanging from the harness. He eyed him a minute, probably deciding if he could let him unsupervised, visibly agree upon it, and turned on his heels, disappearing behind a cluster of dried bushes. Kayn sighed and sagged on himself, rubbing his calves in hope the stiffness would vanish.

He wondered how Zed would react to his disappearance. Would he just assume that he had messed up and somehow got himself killed, and not act on it? Who would replace him? He thought of Nahira, a younger acolyte that Zed had mentioned a few times. Callused jealousy swelled inside him, but deflated quickly. He did mess up. He did get caught and he was now a prisoner, which was as good as being dead. Zed wouldn’t care about his predicament. Kayn was on his own now. He could only rely on his own abilities to get out of here, he just didn’t know how. Yet.

Talon came back with the two now plush waterskins. He knelt beside Kayn and as he drew some on a handkerchief, Kayn said: “That’s really unnecessary.”

The Noxian didn’t answer and started swabbing the bloodied areas. He wasn’t gentle about it and Kayn found himself stifling a yelp more than once. Talon’s hands were meticulous and trained. They moved purposeful across his skin, only slowing around aggravated wounds. One on his lower abdomen was already presenting sings of infection, harbouring a preoccupying swelling and colouring. Guess noxian thugs didn’t take the time to sanitize their weapons.

Talon applied a greenish ointment on it. It left a mentholated sensation on his skin, which was both placating and unpleasant, because of the numbing feeling that followed.

“Why are you doing this? If you let me die, you can just bring the scythe to your masters. That’s what they want, not me.” 

“It’s not that simple.”

“No?”

“No. Besides, I wouldn’t wish to anyone to die from septicemia.”

“How considerate.”

Talon shrugged, but something darker was hunting his pupils. Kayn wanted to hate him, for being his captor, for being noxian. Yet, the more they advanced, the less he could deny that they weren’t different from one another. Maybe, if he hadn’t been taken as a child soldier, maybe he would have ended in the same place as this guy, a noxian hound, whose only purpose was not to dissatisfied its masters.

“Talon,” the man said, out of the blue.

“Uh?”

He was bent over the rashes that were covering Kayn’s knees and calves, pouring brackish water onto them. His bangs were covering his expression, but his mouth was set into a thin, serious line.

“That’s my name. You kept asking about it.”

“Oh,” he drawled, “that’s a weird name.”

Talon shrugged once more. “I didn’t choose it.”

“Your parents?” Kayn wondered out loud, because he had a feeling that it wasn’t the case.

“No.”

Before he could ask more, Talon pressed his fingers on a deep laceration on the top of his thigh. Kayn clenched his teeth and watched with uneasiness as Talon poured more water over it and scraped the dry blood around it. He grimaced. Now that his body was starting to get cleaner, his wounds appeared even uglier. That reminded him of his childhood, when he liked challenging far bigger and experienced acolytes, eager to learn and to show himself worthy. It had paid off, as for now, no one could defeat him on an equal footing, but at first, he had eaten the dust more than once. However, he was glad that no one had ever shown him mercy despite his age and greenness.

“That will have to do,” Talon said.

He pulled Kayn’s trousers back up and considered the _obi _with an impatient expression.

“How do you…?”

Kayn sighed, “Just do a simple knot, whatever.”

“Just explain how to tie this thing properly.”

“Do you know how to do a braid?”

“I guess so.”

“Then just braid the strands.”

Talon considered the rope-like belt, dubious, but started threading the straps. The result was nowhere close to the original, but it would be enough to keep his _hakama_ attached to his hips.

“We’ll rest for the night,” Talon said, his voice a murmur in the canyon haze, “but not for long. We have to get going, we are close.”

“Delightful,” Kayn answered, rolling on his side, ready to sleep on the dirt.


	4. Victors and Spoils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you so much for reading this and leaving kudos ! :)
> 
> So, no Talon and no Kayn in this chapter, I hope this will be ok !

**PART IV.** _Victors and spoils. _

Katarina stalked forward. She plumed herself to be fearless, yet she couldn’t deny the uneasiness that was coiling in the pit of her belly. She kept her left hand on the wall, as she could not see further than her own feet in the pitch-black darkness that embodied the corridor. She tried to not think about what was the slimy texture beneath her fingertips, nor the putrid and metallic stench that rose from the stagnant water she was struggling to walk through.

Her right hand remained on her daggers. _For Noxus_, she thought. She had to redeem herself if she wanted to ever pretend to the Noxus’ greatness again and if she succeeded here, she would be back in the general’s favors. What was once her mistake would be her reckoning. She wanted to be Noxus greatest daughter and she will.

Yet, the deeper she progressed into the catacomb, the more it felt like another mistake. However, she couldn’t turn tail now.

Rumors said that the _white woman _had been seen in Khworez. More investigations had led her to a coastal cemetery underground. Layers of clean white bones had saluted her entry and now she was navigating blindly in a maze of small couloirs with sewage up to her knees and her daggers for sole companions. Just as she likes it.

The white woman was Noxus nemesis, yet, for most she was just a legend, a creature not unlike a chimera or succubus, created to warn children off greed and envy. Katarina had trouble believing it herself, but the Grand General Swain thought that was where the real threat was laying, not in Demacia or Ionia, not even in the Freljord, but in Noxus very core. It was a poison, he had said, that had been eating at Noxus foundations for centuries, but that no one could grasp or even comprehend. It was a mirage, but a deadly and inconspicuous one.

If she managed to bring back this woman’s head, she would not only be a hero, she would be a saviour. Her name will be written in books and remembered over millennia. Maybe they would even erect a statue to her honour.

_No_, she shook her head, annoyed at herself. She wasn’t doing it for the glory. She was doing it for Noxus. She was doing it for the future greatness of her fatherland. Little did she care about her name being etched into stone. She was doing it so no one else would have to suffer her torment. She had lost her sister and mother to this curse, and this, she could not forgive.

If this mission was to be a failure, she hoped she would die, as there was no way back for her.

As if on queue, she heard movement behind her. She turned around, gripping her dagger, but not unsheathing it. She stood straight, oblivious of the fear eating at her insides. Appearances, she had been taught, were the first part of being strong. So even though she felt doubt, she stood fierce and tall.

“Show yourself,” she demanded, her voice poised and commanding.

The movement paused.

“You have always been so foolish,” a voice she knew too well answered her, “Why are you here?”

Katarina’s fingers trembled by her side, itching toward her blades, yet, she couldn’t find in herself the force to take hold of them. “Show yourself,” she repeated, weary.

“Oh, sweet sister, what have you done?”

A silhouette started to emerge from the shadows, tall, too tall for the voice emanating from it. Green eyes glowed, staring straight into her soul. “You have always mistaken bravery with recklessness. When will you learn, Katarina?”

She felt herself fall backward. She tried to raise her hands to reception herself, but she was frozen, reduced to immobility by some invisible force. Cold arms grabbed her and even colder fingers probed at her neck, feeling her pulse. “Exquisite,” a masculine voice whispered to her ear, startling her by the sudden closeness.

If she had been a lesser woman, she would have burst into tears, but she refused to let such weakness dominate her. Instead, she stared at the approaching figure, clenching her teeth to articulate words, but they could not pass the barrier of her throat. Her sister’s face loom over her, dominating in her beauty. But the closer she came, the more foreign she appeared to her. Her timeless beauty was now flawed. Her skin, that used to be porcelain white, was now covered in patches of greenish scales. Her eyes were now a sickly yellow and slit, loaded with scorn and pain.

“Don’t touch her,” she spoke, her familiar voice coming from this stranger’s visage.

“I wouldn’t dare.”

She heard a laugh swell in the male’s voice, before the darkness invaded her consciousness.

__

She woke up to the feeling of a hand curling against her cheek. A sweet, motherly caress that was so foreign that it startled her awake.

She sat up, her hands sinking into a soft and plump mattress. Rows of cushion pushed against her back, inviting and more luxurious than her own chambers back at Urzeris. Everything was colored in pink and white, and it reminded her of young Cassiopeia, who had been so sweet and futile during their childhood. A ludicrously fluffy rug covered the floor and tickled the ball of her feet as she stood up. She looked around, searching for whoever had woken her up, but found no one.

She looked down at herself and grimaced. Her black leather clothes had been changed to a flowy summer dress imprinted with lavender flowers. She was stripped from her weapons, defenseless. Her wild mane was gathered into a lousy bun. She couldn’t remember the last time she had looked so pretty and well-kept. 

It was strange, she thought, how she went from a sewer to some kind of child princess room. Even the air smelled of vernal flowers and sugary biscuits. She wondered if it was Cassiopeia’s room. Did her sister put her in a safe place? Somehow, she couldn’t believe it. Cassiopeia and their mother had disappeared few years ago. Her dad and Swain had said it was the work of the white woman and that if she ever saw them again, they couldn’t be trusted, as the white woman had a talent for manipulating minds and irreversibly change them.

There was no door. She was surrounded by four perfectly smooth walls. No windows either. No escape.

When she turned around, her eyes met those of a woman. She sat at a small round table, her hands prettily folded underneath her chin as she smiled sweetly.

“Who are you?” Katarina questioned, but immediately felt stupid for asking when she noticed the woman’s pale complexion and black hair. The white woman herself.

Her plum lips curved further. “You may call me Leblanc.” Her saccharine voice resonated, too loud. “Come,” she added, gesturing to a second chair.

Katarina hesitated, but barely. She was conscious that her back was to a wall. She silently took her place, playing with the hem of her dress. She found out she hated feeling the freshness on her calves.

“It suits you,” the woman said. She extended a hand to gently push a strand of her behind her ear. Katarina frowned, but didn’t rebuffed her.

“Where is Cassiopeia?”

Leblanc made a vague gesture. “Somewhere or another. She is free to do what she wants.”

A stone seemed to sink in the pit of her stomach. Of course, her sister was here by her own will. Somehow, she hoped otherwise.

“Is my mother here too?”

“Soreana is not here, but she is well.”

Katarina looked her scarred hands. Everything felt so hollow.

“So, they did abandon me. For what? For who? You?”

She looked up, fierce and defiant, but a placating hand on her cheek made her anger stagger.

“Sweet child,” her thumb carefully caressed the scar crossing her left eye. “They had no choice. They couldn’t take you with them. Your father would have never allowed it.”

“Why not stay then?”

“There is a greater purpose they have to serve.”

“That’s bullshit.”

This time, she found enough might in herself to push her hand away.

“You will understand, in due time.”

Katarina laughed, a broken, anguished sound. “_Right_.”

She crossed her arms. She felt too exposed.

“Are you going to kill me?”

Leblanc frowned, as if the mere idea of killing seemed atrocious to her. “No. No, of course not. We are not barbarians here.”

“Then what? What do you want?”

The white woman leant forward, prettily cupping her chin with her palm. “I want many things, young lady. But for now, none from you. You are the one who sought me. Why?”

She seemed so benevolent and petite. She sat with her leg crossed, her tiny foot beating a slow rhythm in the air. She wore a close-fitting black dress that accented her hourglass figure and pale skin. Her raven hair was falling like a curtain down to her shoulders. Her smile was sweet and sincere, creating fine lines around her eyes. Yet, those were cold and motionless. They stared deep into Katarina’s, scrutinizing.

“To kill you,” the red-head said, baring her teeth in a deranged, daring smile.

Leblanc smiled, indulgent. “Shall we have some tea?”

The light flickered and another Leblanc appeared. She walked to the small dresser that sat in front of the bed and opened it. She knelt and took out a platter on which were displayed a teapot and two cups in china painted with dancing humming-bird and flourishing orchids.

“_Kukicha_,” the second Leblanc asked showing a pot full of green leaves, “or _genmaicha_?” She pointed to another pot full of leaves and roasted rice.

As Katarina wasn’t answering, the first Leblanc spoke up: “Let’s have _genmaicha_, it soothes the mind.”

Katarina watched the second Leblanc get to work. She took out a carafe from the same dresser and poured water into the teapot before throwing a handful of leaves into it. Mere seconds later, she was walking toward them with the platter and served them a cup of tea, and disappeared in a sparkle of purple light.

Leblanc shuffled her finger around the cup boarder and brought it to her lips, blowing carefully on the liquid to cool it.

“You see,” she said, “many have tried to kill me. Yet, here I sat in front of you, drinking tea.”

She seemed amused, as if some kind of private joke was unfolding in front of her.

“What were you told about me?”

Katarina found her voice again. “That you were like smoke, insidious and impossible to catch.”

Leblanc took a sip, hiding her smile behind her cup. “Swain told you that, didn’t he?” 

“Yet, I found you,” Katarina kept going, clenching her fist onto her dress. “But I didn’t think…”

“_You didn’t think,_” Leblanc interrupted her, her sugary smile morphing into a smirk, the cruelness of her eyes finally reaching her face. “That’s it, child. You wanted to be a hero, didn’t you? You wanted them to be proud of you. But you are nothing.”

The woman let go of her cup, but before it could touch the carpet, it vanished. “You are a puppet, and you lost yourself trying to play with the big guys.”

The flowery scent changed to a putrid one and her clothes reversed to her familiar leathers. Leblanc’s smile turned into a contemptuous pout.

“You are so much like him.” She clucked her tongue with a false air of regret. “If only he knew.”

The walls started to bleed black and red.

“Besides,” Leblanc added as she stood up, “you didn’t find me. I found you.”

The white woman snapped her finger and the room faded to black. When the light came back, Katarina found herself in a dimly-lit room, sitting on a wooden chair. A man was standing in front of her, white-haired and clothed in red. He smiled at her when their eyes met, flashing his two elongated canines at her.

“What have you done?”

Katarina looked above her shoulder. Cassiopeia stood in a corner. But it wasn’t really her, not as Katarina remembered her. This was no girl. It was some kind of creature sprouted straight out of a nightmare. Where should have stood a slender woman was a serpentine body covered in yellow and green scales instead.

“Cassiopeia?” she gasped, “What happened to you?”

Her sister slithered forward, her sharp tongue stabbing the air. 

“That’s me, sister. Are you disgusted?”

Katarina watched Cassiopeia’s body twist, then straighten to tower far above her. Her mouth went dry.

“No,” she replied.

Cassiopeia snorted, her eyes narrowing. “Leave us,” she addressed the man, but her eyes stayed transfixed into Katarina’s.

The man hesitated. “Are you sure?” he asked, “_She_ said…”

“Vladimir.”

The authoritative tone was enough to make the white-haired man back down. He slowly walked out of the room. “I hope you know what you are doing,” he drawled out right before closing the door on them two.

“Cassy—” Katarina started.

“Don’t! Don’t call me that,” Cassiopeia barked. She ran an agitated hand down her face. “Why did you have to come here? Why now?”

“The question is why _you_ are here!” Katarina snapped back. “I thought you were dead!”

She tried to not sound as hurt as she felt. The betrayal prickled her skin and buzzed inside her guts. A small part of her was just relieved to see her sister after so many years mourning her disappearance. But for the major part, she swam into incomprehension, so she did as she always does, she channeled her pain into anger.

“You and Mother,” she went on, screaming so no other emotion could be translated into her voice, “you both disappeared without saying anything. You left me alone! All those years I thought you were dead. No letter! No sign! No nothing! Father said—”

She clamped her mouth shut, her eyes widening at the realization. Cassiopeia stood silent, watching the self-deprecating understanding settled itself inside Katarina’s mind.

“What did he say?” She pushed on, her voice nothing but a tired murmur.

“That they didn’t find your corpse.” She casted her eyes downward, watching her scarred and calloused fingers. “He knew all along, didn’t he? All this time, he knew?”

“Yes.”

A dull feeling sat on her chest. She really just was a puppet.

“Why?”

She didn’t know what she was asking, but the word parted her lips nonetheless and levitated between them. Why did they leave? Why wasn’t she told anything? Why was she always so alone?

“Leblanc,” she pursued, because Cassiopeia wasn’t talking, “she said you had a greater purpose. That’s why you left.”

Their eyes met again. She was taken aback by the distance inside Cassiopeia’s. It hit her for the first time that she wasn’t facing her sister, but a stranger. A captor. Her first clenched by her side where her weapons should have been, but her fingers only met thin air. They weren’t here to discuss past matters or to reconcile. She was a prisoner, and Cassiopeia was nothing more than Leblanc’s hound.

“I see,” she whispered. “You won’t say anything.”

She cracked her knuckles and reveled in watching Cassiopeia’s recoil at the sound.

“What is it, _sister_?” She derided when the silence lingered once again. “What do we do? What’s the order? Kill me?” 

Years back, she would have laughed at the mere idea of Cassiopeia’s physically hurting anything. She remembered clearly how the girl cried when their father had slapped a bee that was wandering to close to his face. She had been inconsolable. But she didn’t know this woman. Maybe this one would cut her skin open without an ounce of remorse.

“Who knows you are here?” When she finally spoke, Cassiopeia’s voice was unwavering.

Katarina licked her lips. Did they want to make her disappear? Did they want to know who they had to eliminate in her path?

“No one,” she answered.

Her stomach churned at the idea that it was true. She had come alone without notifying anyone of her plan. It was better like it, she thought. She didn’t want anyone to know the extent of her idiocy. She shook her head at the idea of her father discovering how she got herself killed. Katarina Du Couteau died running straight into her target’s trap. _That’s what happened when the rabbit think itself a wolf, _he would say.

“Not even Talon?” Cassiopeia asked. 

“No one,” she repeated.

Their eyes met again, Cassiopeia’s tracking any trace of a lie into Katarina’s.

“What was your plan, Kat?” Katarina bristled at the nickname, but Cassiopeia didn’t let herself be interrupted. “Kill Leblanc, bring her head back to Noxus Prime and become a _fucking_ hero? How can you be so naïve? How could you even imagine that it would work? And now, look at you!”

Katarina thought that if Cassiopeia hadn’t been so well-taught, she would have spat onto her face.

“You didn’t grow up,” she pursued, looking down at Katarina’s face from her superior height. From her whole state of superiority. “You didn’t change one bit. You were always reckless. Act first, think later. That doesn’t work.”

“I know.” She leant back against the chair. It cracked under her weight.

Silence settled again. Cassiopeia watched her sister, which was fixing the ceiling.

“I know,” Katarina said again, weakly. “But what else should I do? I have nothing. I am nothing. Should I just accept my fate and die in the shadows? I’m not Talon. I want to show what I am worth. I want to prove them that I am destined to greatness. I want to be _more_.”

A painful laugh escaped her throat, a painful sound.

“But look at me. Again, I just showed how much of a failure I am. But at least, it will end here.”

She straightened herself and smiled at Cassiopeia, just a lift of the left corner of her mouth. “Let’s get it over with, Cassy.”

The reptilian woman shook her head. “I won’t let you die here.”

She took out a small phial from inside her corset. A milky white liquid shone inside it. Katarina’s eyes widen in recognition and fear, as it was the only poison that she never had dared testing on herself.

The white lily, that only grows in the forbidden Garden of Forgetting in Ionia.


	5. About moonlight and sunbeams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! As always, thank you for following this story so far!
> 
> Little spoiler about this chapter, but I feel like I should warn you in case you didn't read the tags, if you did, then no need to continue reading this note. - 
> 
> So, there is smut at the end of this chapter and it's between two men. If you are uncomfortable with it, you may want to skip it. If you are uncomfortable with homosexuality in general, I believe this is where we should part ways. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. 
> 
> See you next week!

**PART V.** _About moonlight and sunbeams. _

Kayn’s arms were stiff from inactivity. His confined wrists made each movements an aching process and his legs were not in a better shape. They had been walking relentlessly for days, each hour of sleep a small victory over his captor. To top it all off, he stunk. He could feel the dirt stacking beneath his nails and dry blood and mud cracking on his joints and plastering his hair, which was unbound and falling haphazardly around his face and between his eyes. Talon was not in a good state either, but at least the man still had the luxury to tidy himself up whenever they came across a watering place.

Talon watched him over the campfire. The sizzling sound of the polishing stones he was using on his long dagger seemed almost obnoxious in the overall quietness. Weariness clog him from the skin to the bone. They were close to the capital, maybe a day or two away if they managed to speed up their pace, which was very unlikely as each step seemed costly now.

Kayn offered quite a pathetic sight. Talon paused his occupation. He rose the blade so a moonbeam could reflect into it and dance over the red ground of the noxian canyon.

“There is a river passing by not far from here,” he said.

His voice resounded like thunder in the ambient peacefulness. It startled Kayn out of his own thoughts. The Ionian looked up from the contemplation of his own knees and frowned his eyebrows in mild confusion.

“I think,” Talon kept going, “you wouldn’t mind a bath.”

Kayn’s eyes lit up. Talon felt a smirk tug at his lips, before the other caught himself, coughing and straightening his back to hide his glee.

“It’s a slight detour though.” 

Kayn deflated. He let himself fall backward, his head hitting the dry ground in a dull _thump_. The position was rather awkward, as he was laying flat on his back without his hand to prop his head up, but he enjoyed the view. The night sky was smeared with clouds, but he could still distinguish some constellation hovering around a crescent of the moon. Zed had taught him the name of some. He felt a flare of nostalgia at the thought.

“Do you want it or not?” Talon asked, his voice even. He let his head fall backward too.

Kayn scoffed. “You talk as if I had a word to say in this whole ordeal. We go if you want us to go.”

Talon sighed. After so many days spent in the other one’s company, he had gotten a good taste of his childish attitude. “Then, we go. Your smell is giving me a headache.”

“Good,” he exhaled, feigning his disinterest, but he was relieved that he would at least get to bathe before being cage inside Noxus Prime.

His mind wandered to Ionia, Zed and the acolytes. He thought about Nakuri’s body given up to Noxus, but didn’t feel remorse. He will most likely be burnt then scattered to the wind. Or maybe Noxian liked to used their enemies’ corpses to feed the swine. That wouldn’t surprise him. Maybe that was his own fate.

Kayn frowned. He wouldn’t let that happen. He was just letting his tiredness turn into defeatism. He would find a way out. He would do.

Like a distant knock on a window, the creature – the Darkin – stirred in the subsoil of his mind. It was angry to be snuffed out, Kayn could tell that much even though the contact was very remote. It was like a persistent itch stimulated by his darkest thoughts. A power, also, at the edge of his consciousness. He yearned for it, yet he couldn’t even graze it.

“What is it?” He asked, pointing at a red flare traversing the sky.

He couldn’t see the frown forming on Talon’s face as he glanced up. “A recognition signal,” he answered. “They found someone,” he added without really knowing why he was letting this piece of information go.

“Someone?” Kayn wondered aloud, not sure what he was asking, but asking it nonetheless.

“I don’t know,” Talon replied and Kayn hummed low in his throat as if it was the answer he was expecting.

They settled into the night. It was comforting, somehow. The silence was a lullaby for both of them, as they had both been taught to embrace it. Talon lowered his eyes toward Kayn’s laying form, only discerning his moonlight-graced cheekbones and throat in the penumbra. The fire was slowly dying from neglect and the cicadas started timidly singing. Talon felt a shiver crept up his spine and flourish into goosebumps onto his neck. He opened his mouth to exhale the breath he had been holding without noticing.

When was the last time he felt so much peace?

“Have you already been told,” Kayn’s voice rose into the night like a harrier in the wind, mighty, yet somehow, fragile, “that you don’t look noxian?” And Talon couldn’t help but watch the jolting of his Adam’s apple.

“More than once,” he answered without pausing, but he forced his eyes to stray upward again.

“Is that so?” Kayn murmured sleepily.

Noxii were known for their tall and stocky built. Most sported thick dark hair and dark eyes. Talon was on the shorter side of average and his body was lithe and catlike. His fair hair was the summum, as there were only two places where a child could be born with such colouring, and neither of them was Noxus.

“You look like home.”

Kayn turned his head and their eyes met over the fire. For a moment, the silence dulled and was filled with the echo of a question. Talon saw it draw itself onto Kayn’s lips, dangerous. _Are we so alike?_ The answer swelled into the inconspicuous glim of Talon’s eyes. Kayn huffed and looked away, a disenchanted smirk twisting his mouth.

“How ironic, isn’t it?”

When they fell asleep, each on one side of the now ashen fire, they couldn’t deny the shallow feeling of belonging that accompany them.

The river appeared like an endless silver ribbon snaking in the callous plains of the canyon. The sun was high and Kayn felt with no little amount of annoyance the sweat dripping between his brows. The sight of water in this arid atmosphere was one of bliss and joy. Even the gelding perked up at the luxurious view. The air was undulating and the slightest gale was stirring up tornadoes of dry ground and hay that went straight to his face and his eyes.

They had given up on their mantles as soon as they arrived in the canyons, where the heat was too strong for close to no cover to shade them from it. Moreover, very few people seemed to dare venture on this path – for obvious reason that is.

“People rather use the noxtoraa once they are this far into Noxus.” Talon had pointed out “It’s safer and the shades of the arches make it more bearable.”

They settled on the shore. Talon unsaddled the horse, carefully putting down the deathly package. Kayn eyed him warily. He wondered if Talon could feel the slurring appeal of the weapon too, but it didn’t seem so. His face remained composed, not lingering on the chainmail while Kayn’s fingers itched to run across it just to feel the heat pulsing beneath. He forced himself to look away.

_Rhaast_.

A chill ran up his spine. The creature was somehow starting to get stronger.

“Should I?”

Talon nodded toward Kayn’s hands fiddling on his own clothes. He nodded and forced his mind to blank as Talon made a quick work of undressing him. Their eyes didn’t meet once, yet he sensed Talon’s eyes prickle his skin. When his hands arrived at his loincloths, he pushed him away with his shoulder.

“I can do that myself,” he said. 

Talon didn’t answer as Kayn walked closer to the river and wiggled himself out of his _fundoshi. _When he finally eased into the water, Talon’s gaze upon him was like a summer breeze.

The water was lukewarm, but it still made him sigh in relief when he submerged himself up to his midsection and leant against the river bank. For a time, he let himself go limp and closed his eyes. The sun was unforgiving on his cracked skin, but the calming caress of the cooler water on his aching limbs was enough to make it bearable. Bathing like that in a natural source reminded him of Ionia, where everything was done in communion with the nature.

The water shifted to his left. Talon sat next to him at a noticeable distance, yet, he could still feel his eyes on him. Kayn slightly lifted his eyelids to glance at the other man. Talon didn’t look away and their gazes locked for a handful of seconds. The silent appraisal made an electrifying shiver of anticipation run down their spine. A small smirk lifted Kayn’s mouth. How long has it been, he wondered, since he had been attracted to another man? A man that was not Zed.

He dunked his head underwater, feeling revitalized as the cooler water trickled down his sunburnt body. Without looking at Talon, he spoke: “My hair, help me.” 

The Noxian pushed himself closer and soon enough, Kayn felt callous hands roam the tangles of his hair, tearing at the incrusted grime that was maculating the thick strands. They were gentle and meticulous, and if he had been anywhere else, Kayn would have lean back to drowse off. Instead, he sat with his back taunt and rigid. Deft fingers wandered further to scrape his skull. A sigh escaped his lips and the hands paused before trailing to his neck. Strong thumbs worked the knot between his shoulder blades in the pretense of smoothing his mane backward. Kayn forced his shoulder to slump, accepting the gesture.

Heat was slowly building up in the pit of his stomach and blazing its way to his chest. Talon’s hands worked down the length of his mane, innocently pressing his spine and ribs along the way. Those were slight but teasing touches that ruffled his skin in the most delicate and unsettling way.

Those hands became slowly greedier and bolder. They ventured further, wandering to vaster expense of skin. Kayn turned around, his eyes meeting with Talon’s lighter ones. Their pupils were blown. The river was clear and placid, so when he looked down, he was met with their full-fledged erections. They held their breath for an infinite second, their arms and back covered in shivers in the Noxian furnace.

“Is it my turn to help you?”

Kayn’s lips upturned into a cocky smile and his shackled hands glided closer to Talon’s torso. His forefinger scraped his abdominals as he let it traveled downward, teasingly slow, eliciting a stuttered breath. It seemed to spurred the Noxian into action as in a spasmodic gesture, he grabbed Kayn’s wrist, bringing their motions to a gasping stop. 

“What is it?” he asked with a fervor that had nothing to do with the question, but everything to do with the answer.

“I don’t care,” the answer was heated as Kayn snatched his hand free. He didn’t want to think about this sensation that was weighing him down and turning aggressive foreplay into tender gestures. He didn’t want any of it, he told himself, he just wanted to relieve himself from all this pent-up frustration. 

He shoved Talon back and crowded him against the border. He pressed his lips against his pulse and awkwardly ran his restrained hands over the length of his cock. Talon exhaled tensely, his throat softly bobbing against those foreign lips. Kayn licked his way down his collarbones, left a trail of open-mouthed kisses along his pectorals, before slowing down to nip at his perked nipples. Talon bite his lips to not deliver the moan that was clawing at his throat. He felt that the moment was fragile and that anything could make Kayn bolt. This man was a wild and fickle creature. 

As he descended further down Talon’s abdomen, Kayn pushed him up so he was now sitting on the river bank. The assassin nuzzled his face into the crook of the other one’s leg, teasingly nibbling at the moisten flesh. Talon’s hands were hanging unnaturally still by his side. He was craving to plunge them into this mane of hair, to claw at the hard expense of Kayn’s shoulders, but he sat unmoving, knowing that any faux-pas would put an end to whatever was happening right now.

When Kayn’s lips finally touched Talon’s cock, the Noxian grasped the grass for dear life, only then did Kayn lift his eyelids to watch him. His lips curled into an appreciative smile, his mismatched eyes a telltale of unrepented desires. He ran his tongue over the underside, letting it bounce against his cheek. He lapped his way along a cluster of veins, eliciting soft moans that blew Kayn’s pupils wider. He tasted precum with the tip of his tongue and followed its path up to the glans. 

Excruciatingly slowly, he teased the tip, his nimble tongue mapping the creases and crests of Talon’s manhood before swallowing it. Talon sagged further down. How long has it been since he had let someone touch him like this? He couldn’t remember. To be fair, he didn’t even know why he was letting this happen in the first place, other than the Ionian seemed to have the power to set his blood on fire with the slightest touch. He wondered what was going on in the other man’s head, but since they first met, Talon was clueless about it anyways.

Through heavy-lidded eyes, he watched Kayn’s hands snaked down his body to grab his own erection, feeling the moment he started pleasuring himself as his jaw tensed up before going slack, a muffled moan scorching its way along Talon’s cock inside Kayn’s mouth. He wanted to protest, but he was rendered mute by a particularly delicious twirl of Kayn’s tongue. Their eyes met and their cheeks mirrored the same blush. Kayn smirked around his cock, his gaze heavy with desire as he was working on his own climax at the same time. The Ionian hollowed his cheeks, sucking the air while bobbing his head and lapping at the tender flesh.

“Ah! Fuck it,” Talon moaned.

He gripped Kayn by the scalp and pulled him up, forcing him to let go of his cock with a resounding _pop. _A warning blazed in Kayn’s eyes, but Talon ignored it and dragged him on his lap, and with his mind clouded by lust, pressed their lips together. He first tasted himself on the other’s tongue, then worked onto coaxing Kayn into the kiss. His qualms were quickly overcome when Talon wrapped his left hand over Kayn’s, which was still working on his erection. The taller man moaned and melted into the Noxian’s embrace. Talon took the opportunity to bring Kayn’s hips closer to his so he could now hold both of their cocks into his hands.

Talon slowly built their climax back up, whilst Kayn clawed at his stomach, slowly curling onto himself and nuzzling his face into the crook of his neck in a desperate attempt to hide how his face was contorting with pleasure. Each moan was roughly repressed, yet none could deny the quakes and shivers that were overrunning their body.

Feeling Kayn’s hot breath against his throat and the humid patterns he was lazily mouthing along his pulse, was definitely what pushed Talon over the edge. He pressed his thumbs over Kayn’s urethra and they bucked into each other, humping for more friction even though it was impossible.

They tipped over the edge in a flourish of moans. Kayn’s fingers closed onto Talon’s thigh with a visceral grip whilst his teeth did the same onto the tender flesh of his shoulder. As they were both trying to catch their breath, Talon let go of their softening erections and let his hands willfully roam over the other’s shaking form, oblivious of the trails of drying cum they were leaving in their path.

“That’s gross,” Kayn protested, trying to be snappy, but his voice still resounded their recent romps.

He still had his forehead pressed against Talon’s shoulders. He felt the fingers paused, then climb up the bumps of his spine and nestled on the nape of his hair, carefully gathering his thick hair into his fist. He used them to tilt his head back and force their eyes to meet. Talon seemed to never tire of it, having their gaze locked and their mind bare to the other, feeling this special spark explode in their silence. Kayn trembled, overwhelmed.

And when Talon brought their lips together again, it was for the sweetest kiss, their eyes closing and their mouth barely moving, but enjoying every bits of sensation that blossomed from this simple gesture.

“It felt good, didn’t it?” Talon asked against Kayn’s lips.

“Shut up,” Kayn answered, but the desperation in his voice was a enough.


	6. Like Crows in your Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys! 
> 
> I gotta say that I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter and the way I built it, but I wanted to get over this part, so I chose to post it anyways. Sorry, sorry. Hopefully, I'll get to rewrite it. 
> 
> Also, I think there will be a lot less updates from now on. Those chapters were written in advance, so it was easy to post a chapter each week, but I ran out of those and I'm actually a slow (and irregular) writer. To give you an idea, the first chapter was written in the beginning of June and I only got out 20k words since then. That, and I have this urge to write a time travel fic, so ye, I gotta get that out of my head too. 
> 
> So, there we go. Have a nice read - hopefully ! :)

**PART VI.** Like _Crows in your mind. _

A hot drizzle was slowly but surely soaking Swain’s robes, but he remained unperturbed. He extended his good hand to gather a handful of rainwater into it, then let it dribble down his fingers. The crows cackled softly, sensing his state of mind as if it was theirs. They felt his chilled expectation mixed with reluctance, so they were too surveying the gate with the same unmovable energy.

He kept his demonic hand under his coat and leant over the guardrail. He could see everything from his balcony, from the high towers of Noxus Prime to the tiniest intricacies of streets. The Immortal Bastion sat like a lifeless titan, grey and cold, swallowing the heat and anything else within its grasp. He watched people hustled in the main court, mostly servants and grooms who had no other choice than tending to their tasks despite the weather.

The gate creaked open and everyone within the court froze to look at the newcomers. Swain’s breath itched too as a chestnut horse tiredly passed the iron spikes. Its size and bulk marked it as a Vidoran horse, and the heavy package it was carrying as what Swain has been waiting for more than two weeks. His eyes naturally drifted to Talon, who was only recognizable by his familiar cloak and hooded figure, the rest of him was too weary and dirty to be any indication of Noxus’ deadliest assassin.

Behind him was trailing a stranger, but Swain knew it was the one who had tried to steal the blade from them. He was surprised by the man’s – boy’s? – youth, but also how collected and calm he appeared. He was scrutinizing his new environment without showing any fears or reluctances, holding his back straight despite the weight of his manacles and of his journey. The way his gaze sometimes glided toward Talon made Swain smile coolly. Talon was always full of surprises.

The pair was accosted by guards, who, as Swain had instructed them, guided them to the east aisle of the Bastion, where were situated the dungeons and inquisition rooms. But as they were about to disappear behind the reliefs of the castle, the stranger looked up and for a split second, he seemed to look straight at Swain.

“Is that it?” Darius mused to himself. 

His fingers hovered over the sackcloth, leery, yet greedily curious. He looked like a young child during Harvest Fest, desperate to open his gift. Swain wondered if he had ever had one of those, being born poor and parentless, with his younger brother, Draven, for only familial figure.

“Careful,” Swain intervened when Darius started tearing at a crease line. “We don’t know how it will react to anything else than its current host.”

They didn’t know much about the Blade of Millenia, other than it was an ancient relic, a soul-consuming one. Darius frowned, but promptly took a step back.

“Where’s the kid? he asked, leaning against the table. He looked rough and tired, having been hastily brought back from an outpost in Ionia to investigate the events concerning the Scythe. He sported an unusually furnished and untrimmed beard and the heavy bag beneath his eyes were only accentuating the greyness of his complexion, yet his gaze was focus and smart as Swain spoke up.

“Washing off,” Swain grimaced at the amount of filth that was going to cover one the Bastion expensive bathroom.

“And the Ionian?” 

“Waiting.”

The General extended his demonic hand and let his sharp nails scrap the mesh. It was faint, but he felt the dim pulsation of the creature blooming to life, its rampant desire to rejoined with its host and its overwhelming revulsion toward anything else. It stirred and heat pushed against the surface, similar to the burn of the venom of a two-headed snake of Shurima. Swain took his hand off.

“We must kill him,” Darius asserted, oblivious of Swain’s wonder.

“We must?” Swain repeated, the mockery in his tone a poke at Darius’ pride.

“Why did you even ask Talon to bring him back? So much trouble. He is a thief and a stranger; he must be handled as such.”

“Have you seen him? He has as much Ionian blood in his veins than you,” he scoffed daintily. “None,” he added at Darius’ puzzled expression.

“But he was raised by _them,_” the burly man bristled, “he has eaten their food during his whole life. He has been taught to hate us.”

“But you should know more than anyone that no one ever turn their back to Noxus.”

The silence that ensued was full of unspoken sorrow as Darius received the slap with a stern nod.

“Even so,” Darius bite out, “why would we show him such clemency? He stole from us! What use is there to bring him here and keep him alive?”

“This,” Swain nodded toward the dormant scythe, “is why. This boy survived where no other has.”

“So what? We will find another one.”

“I wish it was this easy,” Swain answered, “but rare are the hosts who survived first contact with the Scythe and that can bear it longer than the time of a breath.”

Darius clucked his tongue. “What’s the plan, then, Jericho? We cajole him into swearing fidelity to the Empire? Or do we get to torture him into mindlessness? In any case, this ain’t going to work. This weapon should be wielded by someone we can thrust, someone we know is worthy and capable.”

“Someone like you?” Swain snickered. He watched Darius square his jaw in annoyance, a tasty reply on the tip of his tongue that he swiftly swallowed behind a temperate curve of his lips.

“Indeed, someone like me.”

Swain scoffed and turned his back to Darius when a firm knock was heard. Talon entered the room, his hood down revealing his dreaded Ionian features, but at least, he wasn’t smelling like a dead raccoon anymore.

“Let’s proceed,” Swain trailed off.

They walked down the grey alleyways. Swain was carefully handling the heavy Scythe, while Talon and Darius followed in his wake. The servants carefully plaster themselves against the walls, trying to become invisible as they were crossing their paths. They went down a set of stairs that lead them to a grand hall where seven cells were incrusted into the wall. They were all empty, but for the one on the upper left.

Kayn was sitting on the ground with his legs uncomfortably folded up under him, his hands lax by his side – the link between the cuffs had been broken – and his head bowed backward and his lips cantillating silent prayers. Darius frowned, his mouth twisting with contempt as he watched such Ionian rituals. Swain and Talon watched with rapt attention, one as a scholar, another one with more superficial intentions.

“How unsightly!”

If Swain’s exclamation surprised him, Kayn didn’t show any of it, but for the stiffening of his shoulders. He glared at them through the steel bars, his eyes lingering over Talon tensed form before stopping onto Swain. His red eye was glowing in the dimmed light of the prison.

“Freaky,” Darius added. He advanced to peer into the cell like one would look at the Circus monsters in Zaun.

Kayn’s eyes slowly settled on the man and stood up. He was a few centimeters shy of the brutish man, but half as broad. His thinners limbs and lithe figure were also betraying his youth compared to one of Noxus most fervent suitor.

“Darius Du Couteau,” Kayn alleged as if he was a judge asserting a vicious crime.

Darius smirked, his scarred face twisting with pride and disdain. “Himself.”

Kayn spat through the bars and watched the gob rolling down Darius’ nose, who was to gobsmacked to react as he chanted: “_Don't turn your back, or expose your neck._ That’s what you told me last time I saw you. I didn’t know you could possibly become uglier.” 

A silent laugh shook Darius’ imposing frame before exploding into a nasty bark. “You fucking piece of garbage,” he snarled, snaking his meaty arm through the bars to grab Kayn’s throat and yanked him toward him. The younger man didn’t move, peering down at Darius with his teeth bare. “I don’t know you,” Darius added after examining Kayn’s face with a critical eye.

“Of course, you don’t,” Kayn sneered, “I was one of many, looking up to you as you send us to death.”

“Ah.” Darius pushed him back and watched him stagger on his feet with pity. “Epool River.” He snorted, “Looks like you listen to my tip.”

Kayn bared his teeth in retaliation, but Swain put an end to their bickering by pressing an impatient hand onto Darius’ shoulder, which exhaled loudly but stepped back nonetheless. “Leave,” Swain instructed. If the Hand of Noxus had any attention to protest, he was silenced by the dangerous glint that shone in the Commander’s eyes. He turned on his heels and they listened to the sound of his sulky steps fading in the hallways. “You too,” he added, when another lapse of silence fell on them. 

He didn’t miss the way Kayn and Talon locked eyes over his shoulders, nor the dismissive way the prisoner looked away to glare directly at him. They didn’t hear him walk away as they stared each other down in a silent appraisal.

Then, abruptly for the ambient quietness, Swain unlocked the metallic door and yanked it open, and stepped in. Kayn tighten his jaw, but took a step back and moved as far as he could in the small circular cell without plastering his back to the wall. Swain sat down with his legs crossed and settled the wrapped Scythe in front of him.

“Sit,” he gestured toward the floor with his good hand, “that’s how they taught you, right? Sitting on the floor.” His upper-lip curled with arrogance and Kayn’s thinned with annoyance. He mimicked Swain’s position, refusing to drop into a formal _seiza_ for this man. In the darkly-lit room and with the high ceiling, Kayn couldn’t see much of the man, but his hawkish nose and his long grey hair cascading over an onyx mantle and armor. He could guess his arrogance in the slow way he articulated every syllable and how taught he held himself. 

“Do you know what this is?” Swain asked and Kayn felt an echo of his first meeting with Talon. Although he felt even less like answering, he knew he had even less the choice now. This man, with the way he excused Darius, was nothing to take lightly.

“A scythe,” he answered smartly.

Swain smiled with so much patience that you would expect him to scold a small child. “But a special one, don’t you think? Or else, you wouldn’t have tried to steal it from me.”

Kayn felt the tension in his bones and muscles. He hated the way Swain trailed on every syllable, how cautious he was in his pronunciation, as if each word was carefully weighted and carefully examined before being spoken. This man was a mastermind, a salient and cruel one, and Kayn knew he was in his way.

“You stole from me,” Swain repeated as he started unfolding the chainmail. Kayn eyed the red glowing hand. “But I forgive you. You are young, you make mistakes. You are even less guilty since you were abducted from your own land and raised with savages.”

“Savages?” He snapped, incredulous. “Who used children to murder other children and women? Who kills the old and the young alike? Who burnt entire villages in the middle of the night without letting them a chance to escape? Who are savages? Because it is definitely not Ionia.” 

Swain snorted. “This is war, child. Method is not what’s matter, it’s the result. One does not win a war by exchanging flowers and poems with their opponents. The only way is to crush them. Those who shrivel at the idea of committing atrocities do not believe in the beauty of their own ideal.”

“You are an animal. A beast,” Kayn scoffed, growing more incredulous by each word pronounced by the man. “What’s your ideal, even? Populating Runeterra with monsters like you?”

“Now, that’s ironic coming from a Disciple of Shadows. Or do you think your Master’s cause is so much more noble than ours?”

Kayn clenched his jaws. He didn’t want to give any things away, as he knew everything could be used against him and were one more way for Swain to manipulate him.

“Zed,” Swain mused. “A shadow of a man, not secretive, just empty.”

The Scythe was now bare and encompassed by a dark red glow. The eye was still close, but it was roaring with power and hunger. Kayn wanted to cover his ear, even though he knew the screaming was inside his head and that he could never escape it.

“I met him once,” Jericho continued talking, falsely oblivious of his prisoner’s torment. “In the tumult of war, he stood immobile as his people were massacred. He watched them die, when he could have saved so many of them.” With his demonic hand, he scrapped the handle. The demon inside him hissed and recoiled. He carefully lifted his hand, trying to hide the excited smile tugging at his lips.

“He is an usurper,” Swain admonished. “A wretched mind, broken long ago, that now pretends to be a leader. He is weak. You are not, you are Noxian. You deserve everything he owns for the lies he made your childish self believe.”

Swain shook his head, sadden.

“All those years, you bravely followed his orders, but do you even know what you have been fighting for? Do you know what’s Zed’s goal? Did he ever trust you enough to share it with you?”

Kayn forced his breath to remain even and refused to let his faith in Zed stagger. Zed has always been surrounded by an impenetrable barrier. He has always been reclus, and somehow, Kayn had always accepted it. How could he not? When Zed was the only family he knew, the only warmth in his rain-cold life.

Swain didn’t protest as Kayn extended his hands to touch the callous surface of the Scythe. 

“You don’t know,” Swain guessed. “All this year, he has indoctrinated you to mindlessly follow his instructions. He made you his dog, taught to fetch his own success. But to be fair, did you really believe he would put his trust into a Noxian? They will never accept you as one of them. You are born and will always remain one of us.”

He remembered every time one of the acolytes tripped him, hid his clothes or allied to force him to take all the toilet flushing duties when he was too young and lost to fend for himself. He has always been alone, a stranger that only managed to exist amongst them through always more violent display of his own skill. He was never loved, only feared. The resentment he had forced himself to smothered all his life roared to life, catalyzed by the Darkin.

“We can make a King out of you. An _Emperor_. I can give you the power you never dared to dream of.”

He could barely hear the man over Rhaast’s mad laughing. The creature was taken by a fit of euphoria.

_A King. _

_No!_

_An Emperor. _

_An Emperor!_

_An Emperor!_

The Darkin cheered at those words through the weakening veil of Petricide.

_Together, we can bring this world to its knees_, the beast drawled, _everything they ever did to you, they will be punished for it. _

_Together, we are rulers of this world. _

_Crush it! Break it! _

_Mercy? None. _

The creature’s thirst for violence travelled up his arms and swelled into his bones and blood vessels. He could almost feel the beast’s ragged breath against his ear as he pressed his hands more firmly around the eye. He was meant to break this world apart to remodel it at his image. He could already picture it: him standing at the head of an army of mighty Darkins, all waiting for his command to wreaked havoc Runeterra. They would be unstoppable.

_Legendary_.

But as he was gently was slowly embracing the weapon, it was swiftly snatched from under his hand. He bristled and glared at Swain. The Commander was watching him carefully, almost doubtfully.

“But only I can give you this power,” Swain reminded him. “And first, you must prove worthy.”


End file.
